


At the Heart of Fear

by CavannaRose



Series: Rose Wilson Fics [12]
Category: Batman (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Terror Titans (Comics)
Genre: Contract killing, Gen, Negotiations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-07-16 22:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7286722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavannaRose/pseuds/CavannaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Wilson has her own code, and enough respect for certain individuals that she's willing to forgo a contract in order to hunt down the prospective client with their desired target.</p><p>(I'm having trouble finding a voice for Crane, may not finish this one.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There were a myriad of reasons that Rose Wilson was not considered a hero. The first and foremost that she'd tried, and failed, in the eyes of many. There was a darkness to her that others noticed, she lacked the basic conscience that the designation seemed to require. She also had a glaring inability to work with others or follow directions, much to the chagrin of both her few friends, and the father she so despised. All these combined to leave her in a particularly... unique situation among those that had her particular skill set.

She had spent enough of her life associating with heroes that she would not go about committing crimes willy-nilly. They were senseless, and she had no greater goal to pursue. She wanted no one individual in particular dead, barring her father. She didn't crave wealth, or power, or fame. She most certainly did not wish to rule the world. The problem came back to that particular skill set she had.

She was a weapon. That was the raw and simple truth to it. Groomed for it. Enhanced from it. Like a plant fertilized and cultivated for this one purpose. When she was honest with herself, she would admit she even enjoyed it. The purity of the violence. The moment on the razor's edge. The uncertainty of who would come out alive, and who wouldn't. It's why she settled on the job she had, despite the fact that it meant she was, once more, echoing the actions of her father, with only the slightest of differences.

Perhaps it was her time on the Teen Titans, but as a mercenary and assassin she would only accept jobs against those she considered evil, or at the very least bad. It didn't mean she wouldn't work for evil men though. Enough of them wanted each other dead that it made her career rather... lucrative at times. She rarely kept any of the money though. For a long time she had spent every cent of it in pursuit of rumours that her mother was alive. Rumours that turned out to be not entirely false, but she had been too late. Missed reuniting with her beloved mother by mere days.

That had changed her, sent her spiraling into a depression that she wasn't sure she could claw out of. She became lost in a world of drugs and alcohol, anything to blot out the pain that she hadn't known she could still feel. But even those habits required funding, and when the cash ran out, she dried up. Thanks to the serum her father had injected in her veins so long ago, she was back to normal in a few days, ready to find her next job.

Working amidst the scum of society meant she'd developed a few contacts in the under world. There were a few criminals that she had almost a sense of camaraderie with, if not a certain degree of respect. Those whose goals and motivations she understood, or at least did not loathe. She looked at the contract in front of her and raised her face to the agent sent to hire her. Interesting enough, the man seemed unable to meet her single, steely eye. She made him uncomfortable, and even that pleased her. She knew the man he wanted her to acquire, dead or alive. She even respected the purity of his particular lunacy. He wanted to understand fear, a goal she could get behind.

She stared stonily at the agent, replying in a careful monotone. "Interesting, I will give you your reply in 24 hours." With that she stood up, pausing as the man placed a hand on her arm. She glared at the forward placement until, slowly, he retracted it.

"Um... well... Does this mean you've accepted the job?"

"Are you deaf as well as foolish? I said you will have a reply in 24 hours. I have accepted nothing." With that she turned, leaving the man, so used to people being intimated by him, gaping like a landed fish. He had doubted, when she came in, that she could do the job. At 5'4 and slender, she appeared a mere whip of a girl, eye patch, armor and weapons notwithstanding. But he'd felt the strength of her arm, and the chill of her stare. If she couldn't do this, he was doubting anyone could.

She was not going to do a threat assessment, or check her weapons. Instead, she headed right for the last place she knew the former psychiatrist known as The Scarecrow had been working out of. She never took a contract against someone she'd made the acquaintance of without talking to them first, it was rude. In fact, she rarely took the contract at all. Usually she ended up getting paid much better to hunt the contract-giver, sometimes with or without the man she had originally been hired to kill. She'd always wanted to see the good doctor in action.

It was an easy thing, sneaking into the old sanitarium. Gotham was rather full of them. This one was not nearly as grand as Arkham, but the man she sought had outfitted it rather neatly with a few traps and surprises. She negotiated them with an ease that would either irritate or fascinate him, not that it mattered to her either way. She could hear him, working away in the basement. Whatever he was doing left a tension in the building, so thick you could almost taste it. She understood her fears, though, and had proven extremely resistant to anything that controlled the mind, when such things had been attempted on her before. It was why the client had come to her.

Using his devotion to his work as a cover, she moved into the lab, setting herself into a pose to demonstrate her disinterest in his actions, perched on his desk with one foot tucked close to her body, an arm around it lazily, and her face free of it's half mask, white hair trailing down her back. "Well well well, Jonathan Crane. I thought after our last chat you would have moved along. Looks like you've shaken that lingering paranoia. Good for you."

Perched lightly on the edge of Jonathan's desk, being careful not to touch any of the vials or test tubes, since you never really knew what might be in them. She gave the gangly villain a smile that was neither happy nor particularly friendly. "You haven't made many friends, Crane. In fact, you seem to be racking up quite the enemy list, if what I've seen is true. What have you been up to?" She pulls one leg up onto the desk, posing herself so that the dagger tucked into her boot is visible before she slides it out and starts playing with it.

"I've had not one, but two offers to take you out in the last week. Someone's being naughty and the neighbours are complaining."


	2. Chapter 2

He waves his hand in an almost dismissive gesture, seemingly unperturbed by the young woman playing with her knife. They have had dealings before, and he knows that despite her predilection for threatening behaviours, if she has not used the weapon yet, she is unlikely to do so unless provoked.

“They just don’t understand the importance of my work. That’s all.” Jonathon grumbled, fingers tracing along his work station. There’s a kind of insane desperation in his eyes as he silently pleads for her understanding. Rose gives an almost gentle smile in reply to the brilliant criminal. Her former friends, even when they were getting along, would never expect the one-eyed assassin to understand anything, but Crane did. Maybe that’s the real reason she paused.

Her single eye flickers, catching the movement of the Scarecrow’s hand as he tilts his head and inches it towards the nozzle on top of the desk behind him. The smile on her face goes a little colder, suddenly more of a grimace than an expression of goodwill. He may be ready to defend himself at a moment’s notice, but she would not let him get the drop on her if he decided to be proactive about all this.

“You don’t usually hesitate on a job, Rose. Why am I so different?”

What made him different? It was a fair question, and she wasn’t surprised that Crane was the one that asked it. She inspected the edge of her blade one more time, and then sheathed it back at her wrist, hopping down off the table to sashay a little closer to the once-psychiatrist. “Would you believe professional courtesy? We do, after all, both work in the realm of fear…” She gave a harsh chuckle, stopping just outside the lanky madman’s reach.

“You’re not really that much more unethical than the men who gave us insulin and the vaccine against smallpox, Jonathan. To be perfectly honest, of all the scum floating around the surface of Gotham, you’re practically a model citizen. Plus, you treat me like a fucking human being, not a bomb about to go off.”

She blew a strand of hair out of her face, pulling out the latest contract against the doctor, as well as the first one. “Two separate contracts, Crane. From two separate interests wanting you removed from this old asylum as soon as possible. One, interestingly enough, says dead or alive. Tell me, Doctor, you’re such an expert, why shouldn’t I fulfill these contracts? It’s a fair bit of money.”


	3. Chapter 3

The former doctor now known as the Scarecrow glances at the contracts in the young assassin’s hand just long enough to catch the names scrawled along the bottom. “You have got to be kidding me,” he mutters under his breath, irritated to recognize a few former associates. He looks up at the white-haired girl and shakes his head. With the nozzle of his newest spray within reaching distance, he relaxes, even in the presence of the spawn of Slade. He has, after all, no intention of moving against her.

“You know who these men are, Miss Wilson, and the real reasons they want me out of here.” He could not permit himself to be evicted from the premises. Nothing must hinder his work. “They think they have claim to this place, and plan on using it to harass the good citizens of Gotham City.” The slender scientist shakes his head once more. “At least you know I am more… discriminating in my targets. I will never jeopardize our city.”

A small smirk raises the corner of his pale lips as he stares into her one good eye. “Besides, you know I can cover the cost of both those contracts combined, supplemented by a nice bonus if you ignore them and leave me alone.” The girl was a mercenary, bred and trained. When all else failed… offer money. That made most of the masses leave him alone.

Rose chuckled, watching Crane fuss about with a sharp eye. The man was a monster, there was no doubt about it, and yet there was something about him that made her feel almost sympathetic. He wasn’t slaughtering his way through the streets at least. As far as crooks in Gotham went, the man was downright sane… but that wasn’t really a competitive market. He was also one of the few she felt safe around. Her reflexes were better, and her altered systems, not to mention the stubborn rage at her core, made her curiously resistant to mind control of any kind, including his. Will had learned that the hard way.

“Jonny, Jonny, Jonny. Of course I know what these fuckers want you out for. If you were a bigger threat than they are, I’d not be sprawling across your experiment table in an attempt to catch your attention. You’ve been quiet lately, a development I approve of since it keeps your test subjects out of my turf, but the requests are starting to get annoying. What I’m here to do is negotiate. Do you just want to pay to counteract the money I’m giving up, or do you want me to flip these on their heads and knock on a few doors in my own, particularly charming fashion?”

Crane reaches for Rose’s hand, slowly so as not to startle her. The young woman is known to tolerate a lot in the pursuit of a contract, but rapid motions tended to make her antsy in the most violent of ways. That was something to be avoided at any cost. “I have an even better idea, my sweet Rosie.”

The Wilson girl stiffened, slightly at the touch, but downright rigid at the use of the affectionate designation of /Rosie/. No one called her Rosie. Regardless of how many nicknames she handed out, it was something she didn’t tolerate. A low growl rumbled in her throat as she watched Crane pick up the contracts and slowly rip them into pieces. He was just lucky he’d put some distance between the pair of them.

Jonathan looks up at the attractive assassin again, hesitation tracing at the edge of his voice as he registered her defensive pose. “I will pay you triple the total amount if you will go have your fun with them. All I ask is that when you are finished, you bring them back here.” The grin on his face is a completely evil one as he steeples the tips of his fingers together. “I am quite sure they will make excellent test subjects.”

Rose carefully closed the distance between her and the once-illustrious doctor, the glint in her single eye dangerous as she reached. Reaching out she ran a gloved finger down the front of his rumpled dress shirt. “Doctor Jonathan Crane, call me Rosie one more time, and I will bring each and every one of these assholes to your doorstep with automatic weapons, and a neutralizing agent from one of my caped former teammates. Capiche?”

Lips quirking up at one corner, she turns and heads towards the door. “Wire the first half of the money to the usual account, Crane. I’ll be back in a week with proof of completion for the second half. Don’t miss me too much.”


End file.
